


Don't You Mind

by FeathersMcStrange



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternative NaNoWriMo, Comfort, Families of Choice, Gen, Late Night Conversations, NaNoWriMo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-24 00:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2561342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeathersMcStrange/pseuds/FeathersMcStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s probably good I never met them.” She speaks softly, in a voice without a tone to hint at what she is feeling.</p>
<p>“Never met who, Parker?”</p>
<p>“His family. Archie’s. I’m not cut out for families. I never was.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't You Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative NaNoWriMo - One drabble fic each day of November inspired by a Radical Face song.
> 
> November 2 - The Dead Waltz
> 
> I was less than a fan of Archie, in that one episode The Inside Job, where we met Parker's mentor. This is set just post that episode.

> _Don’t you mind, don’t you mind_   
> _She’ll be fine_   
> _Tie a bell around her ankle_   
> _Before she lays down at night_   
> _And the sound of her footsteps_   
> _Will wake me in time_   
> _Don’t you mind, don’t you mind_   
> _I’ll watch over her_   
> _As though she were mine_
> 
> \- Radical Face,  _The Dead Waltz_

The night is not cold, but rather pleasantly cool. Sophie walks out onto the roof in a light sweater on over some of Nate’s old clothes currently serving as pyjamas (she had flat out refused to sleep in her day clothes). It’s one of those nights that happens with an un-admitted degree of regularity, where everyone gives up on the idea of ‘going home’ and crashes at Nate’s. Sophie had gotten up to get a glass of water when she noticed Parker absent from the armchair she had curled up in at the evening’s end.

Concern welling in her chest, Sophie found the blonde girl eventually, sitting on the roof with her legs dangling over the edge. This would have worried Sophie more had she not known Parker came up here often to sit and think like this. The thief called it a ‘bubble away from the world’, she came up here to work out the kinks in a plan, or just to think.

Sophie walks quietly over and sits next to her, letting her faded plaid encased legs dangle down next to Parker’s. They are both quiet for a time. Parker’s legs swing slightly, heels tapping back against the brickwork of the building. It takes a minute or two, but Sophie waits. Holds her tongue and waits for Parker to find her voice.

“It’s probably good I never met them.” She speaks softly, in a voice without a tone to hint at what she is feeling.

“Never met who, Parker?”

“His family. Archie’s. I’m not cut out for families. I never was.”

Looking out over the city and feeling the discomfort radiating off Parker in waves, Sophie sighs and thinks about how she isn’t sure who Parker’s trying to convince with that one.

“I don’t believe that,” Sophie says, quiet and easy. She does not need convincing. She puts every ounce of confidence and sincerity she’s ever had into the words, and hopes Parker knows the difference between Sophie when she is telling the truth and Sophie when she is running a con. Just in case, Sophie continues. “I mean it.”

She feels rather than sees Parker shuffle closer, her cheek pressing against Sophie’s shoulder.

“And even if you weren’t,” Sophie says, watching the city lights glitter, “you’re definitely cut out for this one.”

Parker sighs and says nothing and Sophie calls it a victory because she doesn’t scoot away either. There’s a spark in Sophie’s stomach, an ember of hot anger at the man who had trained Parker, who had played a hand in turning her into the person she is today. Sophie wouldn’t have her any other way, but she can see sometimes the hesitation in Parker’s steps before she sits down to dinner or settles into the couch to watch a movie with Alec. She wonders how much of that reluctance would still be there if Archie hadn’t unwittingly taught her years ago that there was no place for her in a family.

_You’re definitely cut out for this one_ , Sophie repeats silently in her head, sitting on the roof and vowing not to move until Parker decided she was ready to go back inside.  _And I’m going to do all I can to make sure you know that._


End file.
